Tag Archives: Sea King

The Turkish Aerospace Industries / AgustaWestland T-129 ATAK might be the unexpected outsider to win the Malaysian Army deal for six attack helicopters. While many experts bet on the AH-64D Apache, the Bell AH-1Z Viper or the Airbus Helicopters EC665 Tigre to make it to the Asian country, the T-129 might just be what Kuala Lumpur seeks to supplement its AgustaWestland AW109s it is currently arming.

“The armed forces are to acquire six attack helicopters to reinforce operations in Esszone, as soon as possible,” Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri announced on 19 December 2014. The Esszone is the Eastern Sabah Safety Zone (Esszone): an area covering the districts of Kudat, Kota Marudu, Pitas, Beluran, Sandakan, Kinabatangan, Lahad Datu, Kunak, Semporna and Tawau. It is located on the island of Kalimantan that Malaysia shares with Indonesia and Brunei. Armed rebel groups from the Sulu Archipelago invaded the eastern part of it in March 2013.

Miniguns
As an intermediate solution to beef up its fighting capabilities Malaysia’s Army Air Corps are mounting 10 newly purchased General Electric M134D Hybrid Miniguns on its ten AgustaWestland AW109s. By not ordering a 11th of these Gatling-type guns, the faith of the 11th AW109LOH the Army received might have been sealed. This chopper was badly damaged during a crash on 30 January 2014. The AW109s currently make up the complete air fleet of the army.

Labuan Airbase
Officially the AW109s are based at Kluang, but armed with the Miniguns some are or will operate out of Labuan Airbase at Sabah. The Royal Malaysian Air Force’s 15 Squadron “Panther” – flying Hawk Mk108 and Mk208s Hawk Mk208 – has already relocated from Butterworth Airbase to Labuan on 7 November. Moreover the Defence Ministry is aiming at basing its top F/A-18s and Su-30MKMs at Labuan as well, likely in smaller rotating detachments of 4 to 8 aircraft at a time. Labuan itself already was home to 5 Squadron flying the Agusta S61A-4 Nuri (licensed version of the Westland Sea King) helicopter and 14 Squadron with the C-130H30 Hercules tactical airlifter.

Best cards
Whether or not Malaysia will choose the T-129 will very much depends on the costs the manufacturer wishes to put on the invoice. With the current almost all European chopper fleet in the Malaysian armed forces, the Airbus Tigre initially seems to have the best cards on the table. But we at Airheadsfly.com won’t be surprised if Kuala Lumpur decides in favour of probably the perfect outsider in this bid: the Italian designed but Turkish redefined TAI T-129 ATAK.

All Bell 412s will now be under direct command of the main RNoAF helicopter unit, 139 Luftwing based at Bardufoss in the far north of the Scandinavian country. The Sea Kings are spread throughout the country, they will be replaced by 16 AgustaWestland AW101s.

RAF Lossiemouth will be the main air base of operations for the land based air assets, with RAF Leuchars as the secondary land base. The air assets confirmed to be involved in Joint Warrior Spring 2014 are these units and/or aircraft:

UPDATED 20 MARCH 2014 | Sixteen thousand troops, 16 nations and a sizable sea force supported by numerous airplanes are currently scrambling to defend the northern coasts of Norway. Why? To show that NATO and her partners have teeth and to train to keep those sharp during exercise Cold Response 2014. The first units have moving in place since the end of February, getting ready for the day the war games begin on 11 March 2014 (DV Day) in what can become the biggest joint combined military exercises of Western Europe this year.

The 6th edition of the multinational winter war exercise hosted by Norway brings units from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA, Germany, the United Kingdom together. In an area that is more than 200 km (124 miles) long and between 50 and 100 km (31 and 62 miles) deep, all the way from the southern tip of the beautiful Lofoten islands to the northern Norwegian town of Tromsø. Epicentre is Narvik-Harstad. The air forces involved will use a even bigger chunk of the Norwegian coast, with operations going on all the way from Tromsø to Trondheim in the south of the country.

Cold Response 2014 concluded the operations on 19 March, with the Royal Norwegian Air Force F-16s from 331, 332 and 338 squadrons flying 35 missions. For some countries, like Sweden, be the biggest military exercise of the year. The Swedes contribute 1400 troops this year and will lead the multinational brigade for the first time. The brigade includes forces from the UK, the Netherlands, Canada and Norway. The naval manoeuvers that preluded the exercise had been given their own operation’s name, Dynamic Mongoose, that also saw the involvement of three Royal Navy Merlins. Of course more interesting to us are all air assets of Cold Response 2014.

Airbases
In-theatre airbases will be Tromsø, Bardufoss, Andenes and Narvik-Harstad. Bodø and Ørland will be used as launching or retracting airfields during the simulated war, and possibly even Luleå-Kallax in Sweden. No word about Kiruna this year, which might have been skipped after the sensitive crash of a RNoAF C-130J on 15 March 2012 en route to Kiruna Flygplats.

The choppers from 720 Skvadron arrived at the scene at 09:40 local time, when about a hundred civilian fire-fighters were still not in full control of the flames that destroyed at least 30 buildings, took out the power grid and destroyed all 13 mobile and land line telecommunication base stations in the area.

The Norwegian Bells can carry a sling bag underneath their belly to drop large quantities of water directly on a spot. Much needed after fire-fighters from 10 different stations battled since 22:40 Saturday night to protect the historic Laerdalsøyri. The village has the biggest concentration of typical Norwegian wooden houses from the 1700s and 1800s after UNESCO World Heritage village Røros further east.

Hard wind
The fire started in a wooden house on the eastern outskirts of the village centre. A very hard wind blew flames and sparks from building to building in a westerly direction over a distance of 400 to 500 metres (430 – 550 yards), destroying 30 compounds – at least half of them people’s residences – and damaging several more.

The wind itself, the darkness of the night and the destroyed telecommunication lines made the operation very difficult. Moreover, rescue services at first concentrated on saving lives by evacuating 400 to 500 inhabitants. Four hundred people – including fire-fighters – were sent to the local hospital. Doctors ordered treatment to a hundred of them – most because of smoke poisoning. Half of the patients were admitted at least overnight in three different medical facilities in the region.

Rescue services were using so much water at times, that the local hospital was depleted of drinking water – which was subsequently flown in by helicopter from supplies in nearby villages.

Sea King
Apart from the two Bell 412SPs the RNoAF also deployed one of its vulnerable 330 Skvadron Sea King medevac helicopters from Florø. It flew in three doctors to help treat the wounded and flew out six patients to the hospital in Førde. On the ground the Norwegian national guard (Heimevarnet) deployed 44 soldiers to shield off and guard the fire stricken areas.

At the time of this writing no serial numbers of the deployed helicopters have been released. The rescue services declared the fire under control at 17:00 local time on Sunday. Experts already deem the 2014 Laerdalsøyri fire as a historic one, with the lessons learned in fire-fighting and fire-prevention will have an impact on many other wooden historic areas in Norway. The city of Bergen, for example, seems now eager to fast-track the installation of sprinkler systems in its wooden UNESCO World Heritage site.